Weekend Sports Anchor Zach Aldridge found himself in a bit of a pickle on Saturday, after the 1-seed Florida Gators finally ended the Cinderella dreams of the 11-seed Dayton Flyers with a 62-52 victory. His station, WCJB in Gainesville, didn’t have the rights to broadcast the highlights from the game, so he basically only had two options. He could just describe the vague highlights of the game and let his viewers know that Florida’s Scottie Wilbekin led the way with 23 points to guide the Gators to the Final Four, and hope that they didn’t fall asleep on their couches or change the channel to a network that could show highlights.
Or he could do something even better than showing footage from Memphis and grab some of the other guys from the WCJB offices and recreate the big plays of the game using a small ball and a paper backboard taped to the wall. Yes, that’s actually what Aldridge and Co. did, and yes, it was as awesome as it sounds. Pay close attention, broadcasting students, because this is how local news clips become huge viral hits.
The only thing that could be better than this would be a news crew reenacting a team’s fans rioting. Get on that, Arizona local news shows.
